Tori Kleinert received the ATA Award for Excellence for her tapestry Semblance of Generational Passage: Listen to Us! exhibited in Small Expressions 2012, which took place during HGA’s Convergence at The Long Beach Museum of Art in Long Beach, California, May 10 – August 12.

Tori Kleinert began spinning and weaving garments in her late teens. Under the guidance of Beverly Semmens at the University of Cincinnati and Lida Gordon at the University of Louisville, Tori concentrated on tapestry weaving and obtained her M. A. degree. With the basic grid of tapestry weaving, Ms. Kleinert can create movement, texture, rhythm, color, luminosity, intensity and positive and negative space relationships to give a clearer definition to concepts she wishes to interpret.

In the tapestry, Semblance of Generational Passage: Listen to Us!, the concept explored is the importance of weavers in our past history who often had no voice, so they spoke in their woven cloth and expressed creativity, beauty and thoughts of their lives. As descendents of these weavers, Ms. Kleinert feels we should study these woven works of art and listen to the words of wisdom and knowledge.